


Undone In Sorrow

by laetificat



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Canadian Shack, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 16:56:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laetificat/pseuds/laetificat
Summary: Years before the Van der Linde gang come to their inevitable conclusion, Arthur takes some time away from his family and stumbles into the path of another man for whom life has not been easy. What they find together might be the answer that neither of them has been looking for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this story sitting with me for a long time now and I think it deserves to see some of the light of day. I'm not sure if it's finished or not, but hopefully it's satisfying in any case.
> 
> for Logan, this takes place in a roughly handwaved X-Men canon where Romulus doesn't exist, so please don't worry about being familiar with comics canon to enjoy it.
> 
> contains some vague spoilers for events in RDR2.

Arthur had been in Sherwood Gulch for three days and had spent very little of that time sober.

It was a miserable little mining town; the main street and most of the buildings were huddled into the lee of a sheer cliff face like a man trying to light a cigarette on a cold and windy day. It had been built around a silver vein which had proved to be much shallower than anticipated, to the disappointment of the people who had flocked to it hoping to make their fortune. Most of the town’s businesses and residents had since moved on to more prosperous ventures, but some stayed, either through stubbornness or because the bitter mountain air and jagged slopes suited them. Now those who remained subsisted on a thin trickle of hunters and trappers coming through on their way to the richer valley towns and the occasional half-cocked investor with misbegotten plans for reopening the mine to see if it was truly tapped out. 

The saloon was dingy and dark. Rags stuffed between the boards of the walls and ceiling did little to keep the chill out. An oily wood stove made for an illusion of heat, but most of the drinkers got theirs from the shockingly strong moonshine that was the only thing on the menu besides squirrel meat and bullet-hard beans. Thin shafts of light painted the dusty mining helmets hung on the walls and the various stains decorating the floor. 

It was a bad place to be anything except drunk, which pleased Arthur just fine.

He tossed back another shot of moonshine, his numb throat barely registering the burn that chased it down into his gut.

“You’ll be wantin’ breakfast today, Mr. Linde?” The barkeep was a thin, sour man, formerly a miner himself, having taken over management of the saloon when he lost an arm in a rockfall. He squinted at Arthur across the bar, then turned his head and spat into the bucket at his feet.

“Nah,” Arthur replied, tracing a droplet of moonshine over the rim of his empty glass with a fingertip. “I ain’t got the stomach for your biscuits any more, Joey.”

Joey huffed, offended. “My biscuits ain't that bad.”

Arthur squinted blearily at him across the bartop. 

“Stick to the moonshine,” he advised. He pushed himself up from the bar, groaning. His head and his belly began a chorus of unhappiness at the movement. 

“I'm goin’ to take the air,” he told Joey, who just scowled at him.

“If you end up in the horse trough again I ain't fishing you out. You can freeze out there alls I care.”

“Fine with me,” Arthur replied, jamming his hat back on his head and making an effort to walk in a more-or-less straight line to the door.

The cold wind and bright sunshine hit him like a slap after the musty air of the saloon. Arthur paused for a moment, trying to figure what day it was supposed to be. Whatever day it was, he couldn't face going back yet. Not with the memory of the house still fresh in his mind, of turning off the road and calling, at first light-hearted and then with growing concern, calling and calling, and the premonition of doom in his chest and he'd gone round the back and seen the two graves, so neat and tidy, the one smaller than the other --

Grief and drunkenness rose hot and sour in Arthur's throat. He staggered two steps and up it all came, stinking bile splattering the frozen mud and the toes of his boots. He stood for a moment, bent over, just breathing. Hoping that this time he would forget. But no, the memories stayed, throbbing in his mind like a rotten tooth. No, couldn't go back yet. Couldn't be the man who had failed his only son. That man needed to not exist for a while.

He was straightening up when he saw the horse.

It was walking up the main street, slow and careful, which wasn't especially unusual. What was unusual was the way the rider was slumped down over the horse's neck. What was even more unusual was the fact the rider was gory with dried blood and was clearly dead. 

Arthur spat the taste of bitter moonshine out of his mouth, his own troubles momentarily forgotten in the face of his new mystery. 

“Hey,” he called, though he didn't expect an answer. The horse picked up its ears and turned towards him, perhaps reassured by the sight of a living human, even one as down-and-out as Arthur Morgan. 

“Hey,” he said again, this time to the horse as she approached him. With a quick hand that belied his drunken state, he caught her trailing rains. Old blood was sprayed across her shoulders and flanks and there was grass and mud in her bridle where she'd been browsing around her bit. She nuzzled Arthur's palm gratefully. 

The man on her back was in a much sorrier state. He was stocky, around Arthur's own age. His long dark hair hung over his face and his skin was grey. The telltale puncture holes of bullet wounds spotted his chest and back. His clothes were leather and deerhide, but decently made. A native charm hung over the horn of the saddle, though he was too pale to belong to any of the local tribes.

Arthur patted the horse, then made a decision. The town didn't have a graveyard as such, the small church being built on a steep bit of ground, and the remaining folk weren't the kind to worry over a decent Christian burial. Most of the town's iterent dead ended up in the abandoned mine, it being the easiest and quickest access to a long dark drop.

Not this feller, Arthur thought. Maybe it was the too-close thought of Isaac and Eliza, the tidiness of their plots, the thought that someone else had been there when he had not, that someone else had been the one to tend his son's body and put it in the ground -- no, he couldn't leave this stranger to an indecent end. He would bury him somewhere proper and clean and say some words over him. Though Arthur was not a religious man, it occurred to his weary mind that it might help ease his own hurts, to do for this man as he didn't get a chance to do for his own. 

The stranger's body was cool but not cold as Arthur pulled him down out of his saddle. He was heavier than he looked. The horse snorted and flicked her ears as Arthur managed to turn him and awkwardly put him over her haunches, but she didn't startle or flinch. A bit of rope from the man's saddlebags helped secure him enough for a short journey. 

“There, girl,” Arthur soothed the horse. “Not far left to go for him now.”

He looped her reins over a nearby post and ducked into the boarding house behind the saloon, fetching out the few belongings he had brought with him. A pile of discarded mining supplies furnished him with a spade and a pick-axe. 

As he walked out to the horse he realised he had made a decision to not come back again once this was done.

The horse was still waiting for him, the empty street behind her for once a blessing. She shifted a little under him as he mounted, but stepped out with a tired determination. Arthur thought she'd be as glad to get this done as he was. 

The road out of town wasn't so much a road as a rocky dirt track that wound down through the treeline and into the forest proper. Snow still crusted the ground here and there, the winter sun still a little too low to thaw it completely. Arthur felt his headache easing as they came under the cool shade of the pines, but his thoughts still felt jumbled and sharp, like a handful of spurs. He began to hum a little, out of habit, a soothing song he thought he remembered Hosea singing over him when he was sick. 

After a time he turned his new mount off the road and into the trees, seeking a clear flat spot where he could dig the poor bastard's grave. It didn't take long to find one, for which Arthur was grateful, as he was starting to feel the dogs of sobriety nipping at his heels. A fallen tree had created a gap into which the young trees had yet to reach. Backbrush, larch and young spruce elbowed against each other at the edges of the clearing, sending out needling fingers that tugged at Arthur's jacket as he rode through. Birds chattered somewhere overhead, declaiming their ownership over the land. A squirrel darted through the undergrowth and disappeared up a nearby tree.

The ground was cold but thankfully not frozen more than an inch or so, having been sheltered from the worst of the frost by a blanket of leaf litter and pine needles. Arthur hitched the horse, slipping her bit so she could eat properly, and set to digging.

At first he worked in silence, letting his muscles warm up past the bone-deep weariness of grief and habitual drunkenness, focussing on the rhythm of the spade turning the earth. Then he began talking, almost without realising it, half to himself and half to the spectre of Isaac that had been sitting by his shoulder for the last week. 

“I'm sorry I didn't come visit you. I shoulda.. I guess I shoulda done better by you and your ma. But she was proud, she wouldn't take nothin’ from me she didn't earn. She wanted me to stay and I.. couldn't. And Dutch, he needed me too. But I'm sorry I wasn't there, I guess maybe I.. I coulda saved you both.”

“I liked the song better.” 

The voice was thick and wet, like the person speaking had a throat full of river gravel. Arthur dropped his spade and whipped around with his hand on his holster, only a little slow on account of his drunken state.

He was expecting some weasel from town, having followed him down to rob him of the dead man's loot and horse. But there was no-one there.

“You gonna get me off this damn horse?” There came the voice again, and the dead man's boots gave a twitch and Arthur blinked stupidly at the sight for a long moment before realising what was happening. 

“Aw, goddamn it,” he snarled, stumbling over to the horse and tugging his knife free. The horse stamped and whickered nervously, obviously unsettled by the strange movement on her back. As Arthur came close he saw the dead man -- no, living man, somehow living man -- peering at him from one eye, the other bruised and swollen shut still. That one eye was as clear and blue as a winter sky, almost arrestingly beautiful in a face streaked with gore and dirt.

Arthur swallowed down his uncertainty and set to cutting the ropes that bound the man. He pulled him carefully down from the saddle. The stranger murmured unhappily as he was moved, offering little assistance. As Arthur set him down he took a single wavering step and then crumpled, gasping and groaning with pain. 

Arthur stared at the number of bullet holes that punctured the back of the man's deerhide coat. He'd taken at least half a dozen rounds into him, if not more. Arthur had heard of men who had lived through similar circumstances, but not for more than a few minutes or so, long enough to perform their final feat of heroism or stupidity before succumbing. This man had been wounded for hours at least. He shouldn't even be drawing breath, let alone moving around and speaking. 

“What the hell is goin’ on here?” Arthur growled, pulling his revolver out of his holster and thumbing off the safety. He took a cautious step back, giving himself room to shoot if he needed to.

The man shifted a little on the ground, lifting a hand to touch his chest. 

“Shoot away, cowboy.” The stranger's voice was accented, rounded and tumbling like he'd come down out of the Northern territories. He coughed wetly, still probing his chest with his fingers. “Wouldn't.. be the first.”

Arthur considered this. “You some kinda witched creature? Or just damned lucky?” 

The stranger coughed out a laugh. He was pushing his fingers through a hole in his shirt, still staring up through the trees at the sky.

“You think this looks lucky, bub?” He asked. His searching fingertips paused, then dug down. Fresh blood immediately darkened his clothing. Arthur bit back an exclamation of disgust as he realised what the man was doing. 

The stranger grunted, his free hand balled into a white knuckled fist, then let out a breath as his fingertips emerged holding a bloodied metal slug. He peered at it with his good eye, then tossed it into the undergrowth. 

“Either shoot me or help me, cowboy. Standin’ around lookin’ pretty ain't.. useful,” the man pointed out, resuming his examination of himself. 

Arthur watched him for a moment, then slipped the safety back on his revolver and slid it back into his holster. It was clear there wasn't much point shooting a man who could survive six bullets to the chest. Better to help him while he could and hope to avoid whatever spirit curse or spell was placed on him.

“What do you need me to do?” Arthur asked.

The man flicked a bloodied finger at the horse. “Whisky. In the saddlebags.” He coughed again, hauling himself into a sitting position. 

Arthur went slowly, not entirely trusting that the stranger wasn't going to leap up and turn himself into some kind of beast. But the man just sat there, breathing deeply. 

The whisky proved itself to be a full bottle, an expensive vintage. Arthur didn't pause to consider not helping himself, it having been quite a trying morning and the thought of becoming painfully sober wasn't a pleasant one. 

After a few swallows he felt a little better. He handed the bottle to the stranger, who took it from his hand without even looking. Arthur had thought he might use it to wash out his wounds, but instead he took nearly as long as pull as Arthur had ever seen, emptying it almost a full quarter before lowering it again. He shook himself a little, coughed, then turned to look at Arthur. His swollen eye seemed to not be so bad any more, or maybe Arthur had been mistaken about it. In any case both eyes now measured Arthur, like a man considering a mule he might buy.

“Thanks, kid. For the,” he gestured towards the grave site with the whisky bottle. “That was a fine thought.”

Arthur shrugged. “It wasn't for you. Not really. I lost..” he cleared his throat. “In any case, I guess you're welcome. Now are you gonna explain what's goin’ on here?”

He walked around to lean against a tree near the stranger, digging in his pocket for a cigarette. The man watched him in silence, seemingly thoughtful. 

“My name's Logan,” he said finally. “I was ambushed comin’ out of Hickory. They wanted the horse.” He grinned, showing bloody and slightly pointed teeth, and scratched his cheek. “Didn't get her.” 

Arthur raised his eyebrows, threads of tobacco smoke curling into the air around him. “Don't look like you put up much of a fight.”

Logan snorted. “I don't think they'd agree with you there, cowboy,” he chuckled, taking another swig from the whisky bottle. He eyed it, then held it out to Arthur.

Arthur wasn't about to turn down a free drink, even if the bottle was now sporting fingerprints of blood smeared across the glass. 

“Arthur,” he offered as he leaned over to take it. “You care to expand on the whole.. comin’ back from the dead situation? Ain't every day I meet a man carryin’ more bullets in his gut than on his hip and still able to tell the tale.” 

Logan grunted. He gathered his legs and pushed himself up from the ground, only a little unsteady, stepping hard as if his bones were weighing him down. He rolled his shoulders, muscles crackling like spring ice on a pond. 

“I'm real good at surviving,” he said eventually, walking slowly over to the horse. 

She set her nose to his chest as he approached, inhaling his scent with her ears pricked forward. Logan smiled and rubbed her neck, murmuring softly to her and earning himself another few points of favor in Arthur's book. 

The whisky tasted hot and sweet, chasing down the smoke and settling the situation into something a little closer to something Arthur could cope with. 

“You gonna go back up to that town yonder and tell them what you found, kid?” 

Logan didn't look around as he spoke. Arthur didn't need to meet his eyes to understand the weight of those words. There would be some in Sherwood Gulch who would pay well to see a man who couldn't be killed, who healed from bullet wounds without even a mark. There might be some in other towns who would pay even more to get their hands on such a man and recruit him to their cause. Or find other uses for him. Arthur wasn't a fool. He knew what he was being asked.

He wondered suddenly just how many men had ambushed Logan and how much of the blood that stained his clothes and the horse's flanks had been his own.

He didn't have to ponder long once that thought occurred to him.

“Nah,” he replied, dropping the stub of his cigarette and grinding it into the dark earth under his heel. “I'm done there. Ain't got much of a longing to be around those sorts of folks any more.” 

Logan grunted thoughtfully. His fingers were working on the horse's tack, settling it back into place. He glanced back over his shoulder; Arthur felt the look like a push to his chest, a flicker of blue like a jay's wing. 

“You know how to hunt, cowboy?”


	2. Chapter 2

Logan, it turned out, was similarly not interested in not being around the folk of Sherwood Gulch -- or any folk at all. Instead, he was headed for the mountains, on a course that avoided human habitation as much as possible. He didn't offer any reason for this besides it being something he wanted to do. 

Arthur quickly learned not to press the issue, though he wondered often if Logan was also trying to outpace his personal demons.

If he was, he kept their nature to himself; a quiet man, he volunteered little besides the occasional grunt or practical information about their surroundings. Arthur found himself chattering at first, unable to stop the habit of trying to get a word in edgewise around Dutch, but soon fell into a companionable silence and realised he liked it far better. 

Logan didn't offer to let Arthur ride the horse. Arthur didn't ask. Nor did Logan ride himself, seemingly preferring to remain on the ground. 

They made camp the first night among the fragrant pines, within sight of a small creek coming down out of the mountains already heavy and cold with the first snows. 

With the practical experience of men used to sleeping rough, they divided the small tasks of establishing themselves with few words exchanged. Logan picketed the horse and set to brushing her down as Arthur went for firewood; he returned with an armful of tinder to find the horse browsing the underbrush alone and a kettle and pan set beside her, a mute instruction. Once the fire was established he went to fill them in the creek, stopping to dunk his head into the icy water and scrub his hands and forearms, and once he was done he felt more awake than he had in weeks. 

Logan hadn't returned by the time Arthur got back to the campsite, so he set the kettle to boil and hunkered down by the fire to stay warm, trying to resist the urge to think about anything more pressing than the soft sounds of the crackling flames and the horse nearby, the whisper of the trees and the embers rising in stately dance from the fire to join the steely glint of the stars slowly emerging in the sky above, and the vagaries of fate that had lead him to be in this moment.

He was startled out of his reverie -- half expecting a swat to the back of his head from Dutch telling him to stop daydreaming and do something useful -- by Logan returning to camp with the body of a young deer slung across his shoulders, her open belly steaming faintly in the chill air.

He didn't seem surprised to see Arthur still there; on the tail of that thought, Arthur realised that there hasn't been anything to stop him just taking Logan’s horse and riding out of there by himself. He owed nothing to Logan and in some respects had every right to want to be as far away from him as possible. And maybe a few months ago he would have done it. But as Logan gestured impatiently for him to come and help string up the deer so they could butcher it, he knew that something inside him -- something that had been fractured by the sight of two small graves -- wanted to share this fragile trust. 

Wanted, desperately, to be worthy of it.

He didn’t hide from himself the knowledge that the last time he'd felt that way he'd ended up falling in with Dutch. That had been a piece of luck of some kind, but he still wasn't sure if it would work out to be bad or good.

As he took hold of the deer carcass and saw the line of three deep puncture wounds, too evenly spaced to be knives, across her ribs, he wondered what the hell he'd ended up getting involved in this time.

Still, Arthur's misgivings made little difference to the march of time; they quickly fell into a sort of routine. Logan picked their road, guiding them through the forest with an almost uncanny instinct for direction that meant they hardly saw another soul. By the second day Arthur stopped trying to question how he knew where he was going and let him lead. He thought about somehow sending a letter to his Uncle Tacitus and letting Dutch know where he was, but decided against it. Dutch would wait for him, or he wouldn't. Wasn't much he could do about it, and maybe they both needed this time to take stock of a few parts of their lives.

Logan hunted when they needed it, disappearing alone into the trees and returning with rabbits or deer. He rarely carried a gun, though Arthur knew there was one carefully wrapped in his saddlebags, delicate roses inlaid along the barrel, old-fashioned and unused. 

One morning Arthur startled a pair of roosting pigeons and took a chance with his revolver, shooting low from the hip, not really expecting to hit anything but fancying the sport. At the crack of the gun Logan whipped around, snarling and fists raised, a wild anger in his eyes like a wolf cornered by hunting dogs. Arthur thought suddenly of the deer with the strange claw wounds in her side, and the fact that Logan didn't seem to carry a knife at all, and put the gun away slowly, without protest. Logan had given him a narrow look and subsided, though not happily. 

Arthur knew better than to press it -- he'd known men like Logan, he was increasingly sure, who had gone through a bad war and come out changed. Certainly Logan had some of the marks of such a man. His supplies turned out to contain more liquor than Arthur would have expected of a woodsman and his evasive answers when Arthur asked him about his past suggested something he didn't want to return to. What, Arthur wondered, would war have been like for a man who could not be killed?

When they slept, lying back to back for warmth beside the fire as the season advanced around them, Arthur often felt Logan twitch and startle with bad dreams, choking on bitten-off shouts, mutters of names he didn't know. He schooled himself to ignore it with a tact that probably would have surprised Dutch and Hosea. But something about Logan made him want to do what he could to stay at the man's side for the moment. A silent pull like a lodestone, a feeling like a debt he needed to repay. 

And those blue eyes that he found watching him, sometimes, when he looked up. 

Winter reached out her cold hands to embrace them as they reached the mountains. The ground became hard as iron, mirrored by the grey steel of the sky, the metal taste of the wind threatening snow. Logan let Arthur wear his coat, saying that he didn't feel the cold so much. Arthur was grateful to burrow into it, spending some time touching the delicate stitches and wondering whose hands had so carefully attached the wolf fur to the collar and cuffs. He found a small charm in one of the pockets, a snarling wolverine carved out of a bit of soapstone on a length of hide, and pressed it into his palm as he walked with the horse, watching Logan break trail ahead of them. 

He brought it out as they sat together that evening, chewing on strips of venison jerky and chasing them down with the last of Logan's supply of bitter black tea and swallows of whisky. Their breath fogged on the bitter air; they both knew they'd have to find shelter soon or risk exposure.

Logan took the charm from Arthur's outstretched hand and turned it over, rubbing his thumb across the wolverine's face. 

“Thought I'd lost this,” he murmured. Arthur studied him in the firelight, keeping quiet.

“Girl up in Blackfoot country gave it to me,” Logan continued. “Silver Fox. She thought I was worth somethin’ I guess.” 

“You loved her?” Arthur asked. Logan glanced up at him, meeting his gaze, then looked away into the trees. He’d had drawn his hair back and tied it at the nape of his neck; Arthur studied the line of his dark furred jaw with an artist’s grateful eye.

“Yeah,” Logan replied, his voice low. Regretful. “Yeah, I loved her. Not that it matters now. She died because she loved me back.”

Arthur lowered his gaze to Logan’s hands, clasped together around the charm. His thumb, rubbing over his knuckles. 

“I lost my son,” Arthur said, the words tumbling from him before he even realised he was going to speak. “That’s.. who I was talking about, back there when I was diggin’ your grave. Him and the woman who had him. They was robbed by some bastards lookin’ for a few dollars, shot right there in the house.” Arthur looked down between his feet, the words difficult around the pain in his throat but he had to say them, or he knew he would never say them to anyone. “I.. maybe I loved them, I don’t know. I think I did, in a way. At least, I wanted them to be safe. I thought they were safe, but they weren’t. And I should’ve been there. And I guess.. I guess I wasn’t.”

Tears stung his eyes, bitter and hot and shameful with the truth that was wrung from him. He drew in a shaking breath, waiting for Logan to offer some words of sympathy or -- worse -- pity.

None came. Instead, the sound of pine branches snapping in the fire rose between them; the whistle of the wind in the high tops of the trees; the soft stamping and breathing of the horse nearby.

Then Logan cleared his throat; stood up, closing the space between them in a couple of steps and hunkered down in front of Arthur. He reached out, opening one of Arthur’s hands. Dropped the carving into Arthur’s palm, then closed his fingers around it. 

“If you’d been there, you might’ve died too,” Logan offered, settling back a little on his heels. Arthur gripped the charm, trying to hold on to the warmth that had followed Logan’s touch. “Somethin’ I’ve learned, cowboy: survivin’ ain’t always a curse. Not always. As long as you make it worth it.” 

Arthur looked over at Logan. He couldn’t see the blue in his eyes in the darkness, only the red-gold of the firelight, reflected. He felt raw and cold in the wake of his grief, flayed by the wind both inside and out. He swallowed.

“How do I do that?” 

Logan tilted his head a little. He lifted his hand up and brushed his thumb over Arthur’s cheek. Leaned in. His mouth, when it pressed against Arthur’s, was dry and hot and tasted of smoke and liquor. Logan held them both there for a long moment, long enough for Arthur to start to respond, raising his hand to touch -- 

Then Logan broke away. He stood, swiping up the almost empty whisky bottle from beside the fire.

“When you find out, kid,” Logan said, “let me know.” 

He turned and walked into the darkness. Arthur watched him go.


	3. Chapter 3

Logan didn’t return before dawn, so he wasn’t in the camp when Arthur awoke to something cold and hard pressing into his cheek. He blinked open eyes full of sand and was met with the sight of a pair of boots, tooled black leather and mud-splattered, inches from his face. A shadow hovered above them, smelling of horse and old sweat.

“Wake up, son.” The voice came from somewhere above him, an unfamiliar rasp. “Up you git. I don’t fancy blowin’ your brains out all over my new blankets.” 

The cold thing on his cheek turned out to be the muzzle of a revolver. Arthur's hand twitched, seeking his own gun belt on the ground beside him, but it was a futile effort. His body had stiffened from a night lying on the cold dirt and too much whisky; he didn't have the reflexes to outdraw a desperate man. Which this surely was.

“You're a goddamn coward,” he growled, letting the man prod and kick him to his feet, the revolver trained square on his head the whole time. 

The coward turned out to be three cowards, ragged and lean as a pack of winter-starved wolves, their eyes glinting from the shadows of their moldy furs as they glared at Arthur. One of them was busy going through Logan's saddlebags, chewing on a stick of venison jerky as he pulled out supplies and dropped them onto the dirt. A bottle of whisky smashed on a rock and earned him a round of curses from his fellows for wasting good liquor. 

Arthur clenched his fists on his impotent anger. The man who had woken him noticed and shook his head, then spat onto the ground. His beard was thin and patchy, the whites of his eyes almost as yellow as his teeth.

“Now big feller, don't go doin’ somethin’ you'll end up regrettin’,” he wheezed. “We're just passin’ through. You just stand there all pretty like and let us go about our business, and you'll be able to walk away from all of this.”

“That’ll be more than you do, bub.”

Even Arthur started at the sound of Logan's voice. There hadn't been so much of a snap of a twig to betray his approach, but there he was at the edge of the clearing, breath steaming on the air. And with a roar he was suddenly among them, rushing towards the man with his gun trained on Arthur, fists raised and there was a thin spray of blood on the air, a ripping shifting noise and three long knives of bone had appeared from between each set of knuckles like a cougar's claws, and he had buried them in the man's throat and chest before he'd had a chance to fully turn around. The man sank to his knees, his gun falling useless onto the dirt, a terrible bubbling choking noise coming from him as his life ran out hot and stinking around Logan's hands. 

There was a beat of shocked silence as they all, robbers and Arthur alike, took in what had happened.

Then one of the cowards gave a spasm of movement, fingers scrabbling over his rifle. 

“Oh Jesus, oh fuck,” he whined, bringing it up to bear on Logan, but his shaking hands betrayed him and the shot went wide, the echo cracking through the forest as a white hot line of pain scored across Arthur's thigh, the shock of it making his knee buckle. 

Arthur cursed and stumbled; a stone turned under his heel, pitching him backwards. He heard more than felt the crack of his skull against the rock, along with a split second of screams and snarls like a caged animal unleashed, then his world titled like a shying horse and he slid into blackness. 

He remembered, later, a series of hazy moments between periods of grey and black, like curtains parting around a stage show. 

There was Logan, shaking him, his face splattered with a dark redness, saying his name and telling him to stay awake, damn it, just stay awake a little longer.

Logan again, perhaps a little while later, hauling him up onto a horse; a blurry image of three bodies stretched out on the ground, sprays of blood soaking into the dirt. One of the bodies no longer had a head.

Then movement, a distant feeling of cold, of tightness around his thighs, flashes of consciousness. White-grey light, eerie, and jagged black shapes of trees like ink scratched across paper. Logan riding ahead of him on an unfamiliar horse, talking to him, which had to be some sort of dream because Logan certainly didn't tell long rambling stories about a dog and a rose, but Arthur held onto the soft words anyway, an anchor to the world as he swayed in the saddle, sick and drifting.

Another interval of time, which gradually resolved into grey shadows full of floating white specks, and a soft shushing noise. Arthur blinked slowly, feeling like he was surfacing from some deep pool, and realised that the greyness was the sky and the white specks were snowflakes, thick downy feathers stirred by the occasional wind, and the noise was someone -- Logan -- digging in the snow beside him. 

Arthur tried moving his hands a little, feeling a deep relief when his fingers answered him. He was wearing mittens and was propped up against something hard which smelled like old wet wood. His head pounded and swam when he moved, making it hard to think clearly. 

“Where..” he managed to croak out. Logan gave a satisfied grunt from somewhere beside him and tugged hard on something. There was a scraping noise and a waft of dusty air.

“Home sweet home, cowboy,” Logan told him. He appeared in front of Arthur, brushing snow from his gloves. He was wearing his coat, snowflakes caught in his dark hair and dusting his shoulders. 

“Come on.” He lifted Arthur's arm and set it around his shoulders, sliding his own arm around Arthur's waist and hauling him easily to his feet desire the difference in their heights. The world swayed around Arthur as he stood upright; he grabbed at Logan’s shoulder, stumbling over the threshold of what turned out to be a hunter's cabin, closed up and damp and full of shadows. 

Logan lowered Arthur onto the wooden shelf that served as a bed heaped with a few mildewy blankets. Arthur leaned against the wall, head pounding, and watched him prowl around the space, picking up various cans and bottles from the cupboards and sniffing at them, then unceremoniously picking up a chair that was leaning on three legs and snapping it into kindling with apparently little effort.

“What are you?” The question that had haunted Arthur for the last few days fell in a whisper from his lips before he could stop himself. Logan's hearing was as good as his sense of smell; he stopped breaking up the remains of the chair, the line of his shoulders falling still. 

Finally Logan looked around, his face painted with darkness, eyes catching and holding the wan light and reflecting it in sharp points like chips of flint. He reminded Arthur of a wolf stepping out of the forest into the light of the fire: feral and, for a moment, utterly alien. Unknowable. Strange.

“Goddamn it, I don't know,” he breathed, after a long moment, looking down at his hands. The wood splintered in his grip; he flung down the pieces with a growl, then turned and stalked out of the room, the door opening and closing on a cough of snow-filled air.

After a while, Arthur managed to haul his sorry carcass off of the bed and limp over to the heavy iron stove that took up most of one corner of the cabin. His shaking hands found a box of matches and a few twists of newspaper in the bottom of the wood box. The broken up chair was tough but dry and caught almost immediately, throwing gold and orange light in flickering waves around the room. 

Arthur lowered himself down onto the floor beside it and began a slow inspection of himself. His thigh was bandaged with what looked like strips of someone's shirt. The blood that stained it was dark and dry and the pain hadn't spread any further, nor did it start bleeding afresh when he nudged at it; he thought it was likely just a graze. Just another scar. 

He lifted his hands to his head, fingertips exploring the fabric wrapped around his skull. His head thumped queasily as he walked his fingers back to the most painful spot and winced at the feel of sticky blood and swelling. It seemed bound well, at least, so he left it alone. For a man who didn't seem to need one, Logan wasn't a bad doctor.

“That's what you get for gettin’ involved, Morgan,” he chastised himself, dropping his hands back into his lap. “A goddamn headache and a friend who might be some demon and is probably halfway to Canada by now.”

He sat for a moment, letting himself feel it, watching the flames build in the firebox, then he rubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes and forced himself back to his feet, only a little unsteady. There was no point dwelling on that what he couldn't fix. If he -- and Logan, if Logan came back -- was going to survive the winter, he couldn't afford to sit around moping. 

The hut had obviously had an occupant not so long ago. There was dried meat stashed in one of the cupboards, along with tins of fruit and beans and some rinds of very hard cheese. A jacket thick with oily dust thrown across the end of the bed and a moldering pack of cigarettes suggested someone had once assumed they wouldn't be gone long. A set of antlers and a deer skull loomed pensively from the shadows above the door.

A photograph was propped above the fireplace: a man and a young boy standing in front of a farmstead, both frowning at the camera like they weren't sure it could be trusted. The boy had the look of the man, so Arthur supposed they were father and son. He spent a little while holding the picture before putting it back in place.

Arthur's head ached like a summer thunderstorm, pain rolling back and forth in thick clouds across his skull, interspersed with occasional lightning flashes of dizziness. Gritting his teeth, he did his best to ignore it, though he didn't begrudge himself a generous share of liquor when he chanced on a bottle of moonshine in one of the cupboards. It made the pain recede, though didn't do much for the dizziness. His stomach churned unhappily but he forced himself to open a couple of the tins of peaches, eating them off the end of his knife while huddled in front of the stove, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

He chased them down with more moonshine, shuddering and sneezing at the strong taste of unrefined alcohol. Getting drunk seemed to be as good idea as any others he could think of. Hosea would have scolded him, but Hosea wasn't there, nor was Dutch, or John or Javier, and he missed them all suddenly with a feeling like a clenching in his chest. He curled himself around the bottle and let the tears come, painful as the lancing of some deep wound that finally runs clear and hot. His heart beat loneliness into his veins; he swallowed it with the liquor. 

Alone, alone, alone again.


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur didn't realise he had fallen asleep until he was woken by someone tugging the bottle out of his hands. The same someone made a familiar noise in the back of their throat. 

“Smells almost as bad as you, cowboy.” Logan's voice tumbled over Arthur's awareness like a rockfall down a dry slope.

Arthur levered himself slowly upwards, which felt only slightly more difficult than reaching down between his feet and lifting the Earth above his head. He groaned as the drum inside his skull began to pound, the pain renewed by the moonshine's absence. 

“Drinkin’ yourself to sleep on top of a head wound ain't very smart. You make a habit of these bad decisions?” Logan continued. He began moving around the cabin as he spoke. Arthur realised belatedly that he was back on the bed -- Logan must have moved him while he was passed out.

“No more'n I used to,” Arthur replied thickly. He yawned, then winced.

“Here.” It took Arthur a moment to realise Logan was holding out a tin mug of coffee. It was as black as midnight's asshole and scorched Arthur's tongue with heat and bitterness as he sipped it, but it put a spark of undeniable warmth into his body. 

Logan followed the coffee with a round of campfire bread and plate of beans that were mostly cooked, mixed with crumbs of dried deer meat. Arthur ate slowly, testing the complaints of his guts, but with the single-mindedness of a man raised knowing to eat food when it was out before him in case it was too soon taken away. His headache began to fade, his thoughts clearing enough to realise all over again that Logan had returned.

“Find what you were lookin’ for?” Arthur asked, glancing sideways at Logan, who was sitting at the table in the remaining chair, sipping from a mug that had somehow lost its handle. 

Logan didn't reply at first, his gaze travelling around the room before landing on Arthur again. He looked at Arthur steadily, the faint light of dawn creeping through the cracks in the walls painting him in broad brushstrokes, grey and black and white, the only color in the faint reddish windburn across his cheekbones and on the end of his nose, and the jay’s wing flash of those blue eyes.

“Think so,” he said, holding Arthur's gaze a moment more before returning his attention to his own coffee. Arthur felt his cheeks grow warm in the absence of that gaze, understanding suddenly what Logan meant.

He'd found what he was looking for.

That was why he'd come back to Arthur.

Arthur weighed the response, turning it over in his mind like he'd turned over the charm, examining it close, searching for flaws. The thought of being wanted, being someone another person wanted to return to him out of something other than pity or obligation, out of simply wanting to be with him -- it wasn't what he'd expected to find, either. Wasn’t what he was used to. But it wasn't unwelcome. No, not unwelcome at all.

“You asked what I am,” Logan continued into Arthur's silence. “Truth is, I don't know. I.. sometimes I think I know, but I can't explain what it is. Why I am.. how I am -- and I'm not gonna make you stay. If you don't want to. Nearest town is a couple days from here, if you go south. The snow ain't so bad yet that you couldn't get through it. You could take the horse.”

Logan had his hands fisted on the table in front of him, like a drunk trying to keep them from shaking. Arthur studied them as he talked. Thought about the lung-punctured deer and the bodies scattered around the campsite. The way Logan had flinched away from using a gun; the way he twitched and shuddered at night. 

The taste of his mouth.

“I'm not goin’ anywhere,” Arthur said, catching Logan's gaze and keeping it. Something like a smile flickered through Logan's expression, only a little rusty. He nodded slowly, tension seeping out of the set of his shoulders. His hands on the table relaxed. Arthur felt an urge to clasp one of them, to see if it was as heavy as it looked.

“There's a creek up the hill a ways and deer sign all over,” Logan said. “We oughta be okay here for a while. If those rats come sniffin’ down our trail --” 

It was Arthur’s turn to growl. “I mean to shoot first this time, Logan. They're not going to catch me with my britches down again.”

Logan raised his eyebrows, but didn’t argue it. He drank off the last of his coffee and pushed up from the table. His breath steamed on the air, swirling past the tiny snowflakes that had started to drift down from the cracks in the ceiling. Logan squinted up at them.

“Gonna need to fix that up if we want to keep from freezin’ once the blizzards roll in.” He returned to the stove, pulling out a dusty axe that had been leaning up against the wall beside it. Tried his thumb on the edge and frowned.

“I'll help you out,” Arthur offered, glad to be getting back to things of a practical nature and starting up from the bed, but the floor rocked underneath him and he subsided with a groan. 

Logan didn't step in, allowing him that much dignity. Arthur was grateful. He wasn't used to being ministered to, much less being an invalid, and it stung at his pride.

“On second thought,” he grated out eventually, past the dizziness, “maybe I ought to stay here and see to our supplies.”

Logan grunted, which Arthur was learning tended to mean he agreed.

“See what you can dig outta this badger's den,” he offered, surveying said den with a glance and a wry twist of his lips.

“A few more bottles of that rotgut oughta set us up right,” Arthur pointed out.

That earned him another snort from Logan as he shouldered into his coat. Amusement this time. 

“I hope you've got a better stomach for it when you ain't injured,” he said. “I'm not tuckin’ you into bed like this every night.”

Arthur laughed sourly, glancing up to catch Logan's eye. A snap of electric desire surprised him as he met the man's pensive gaze and realised he wouldn't be too unhappy to have Logan put him to bed in that very moment, headache or not. He swallowed down his response, abruptly conscious of the tension which was surfacing between them. 

Logan's nostrils flared a little; Arthur heard him inhale. He let the axe slide down to rest on the floor, then crossed the room slowly, pacing like a man who knew what was waiting for him and wasn’t going to rush himself to get it. 

Arthur watched him, part of him trying to imagine how he’d draw the man in that moment, all wild dark hair and those wide shoulders, wolf fur and sharp blue eyes full of sorrow and something shadowed and hidden. He wondered what Logan saw in return, besides a tired and wounded gunslinger with too many holes in his heart.

Logan leaned down a little -- they were almost of a height, though Arthur was sitting down -- and kissed him much as he had done beside the fire days before, if a little more slowly. This time the heat was made of skin and sighs instead of scraps of wood, Logan's breath flaring embers on Arthur's chilled skin, his lips and tongue tasting of the strong bitter coffee. 

Arthur groaned in the back of his throat and was about to take a handful of Logan’s lapel, to tug him down to deepen their contact, when Logan broke away, pulling back with Arthur's hand sliding down his front. Arthur let him, but didn’t bother to hide his disappointment as he licked his lips, tasting coffee and ashes, and looked up at him.

“Makin’ it worth it, huh?” Arthur flipped the coat aside as he spoke and rubbed his hand slowly across the hard planes of Logan’s belly through the folds of his shirt, testing the boundaries of what was being built between them. Up and down, buttons scraping his palm.

Logan allowed it for a few moments, breathing a little strong, then took up Arthur's hand. He pressed his lips to the middle of Arthur's palm, inhaling as if to fix his scent, then gave him a swipe of his tongue that made Arthur hiss through his teeth, and released him.

“I hope to,” Logan said.

Then he turned away, breaking the thread of tension that was running between them. Arthur felt the absence of it like a feather touch along his ribs. Logan picked up the axe and slung it over one shoulder as he headed to the door. 

He paused on the threshold; glanced over at Arthur. “Now do me a favor cowboy -- don't go fallin’ over any more rocks before I get back.” 

He stepped aside with uncanny speed as Arthur's coffee mug bounced off the wall beside him and ducked out into the winter morning, laughing heartily. Even as he muttered curses, Arthur decided he hadn't heard a sweeter sound in a long time.


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur wasn't used to being taken care of, but he was used to pushing aside his hurts to do what was necessary; he put it to good use that day. Maybe he stepped a little slower and paused to catch his breath a few times, but he managed to put the cabin into some sort of order. A cupboard gave up some extra blankets, thick warm wool even if they were a little mouse-chewed at the corners, and there was indeed more of the moonshine in bottles of various sizes, each labelled in a careful but wandering hand. There was a store of coffee and a drum of dried beans that looked to be edible once they washed the dust off.

He worked with an effort, ignoring the slow pounding of his head, remembering one long summer morning after betting Javier over rounds of whisky that he could hitch, steer and unharness the wagon team all by himself no matter the fierceness of his hangover. He'd done it, too, despite the heckles and occasional piece of fruit thrown by Bill and Sean, and earned himself five dollars and Dutch's uproarious laughter once he found out what was going on. 

The world outside grew grey and shaded as the day advanced, the wind whistling at the corners of the cabin steadily increasing in volume. Arthur was investigating a stack of books he’d found under the bed when Logan returned, shouldering open the door in a flurry of snow and cold air, a stack of kindling in his arms.

“Blizzard’s comin’ in.” He stamped a little of the snow off his boots and crossed the room to dump the wood beside the stove. “What’s that?”

Arthur stood and raised one of the books for Logan's inspection. “Old man's Bible.” He flipped through some of the pages. “Got a whole lot of notes. Seems he had some issues with the idea of predestination.” 

Logan snorted. He shrugged off his coat. “Can't say I blame him. Fate ain't what makes a man's life. Fate gave me these.” 

The bone-grating snickt of the claws appearing sounded much louder in the confines of the cabin than it had in the clearing. Arthur swallowed down a moment of instinctive uneasiness as he looked at them. Logan didn't seem to notice. He turned his fisted hand, apparently inspecting the blades.

“But they ain't gonna define me,” he continued, loosening his fingers and letting the knives slide back into his arm. “That's all I know. Or care to know.”

“Don’t it hurt when you do that?” Arthur made a fist and opened his hand again. 

Logan eyed him sideways, perhaps weighing up how much he thought Arthur wanted to hear. “Sometimes. Feels like.. stretchin’ a muscle. Don't notice the cuts healin’ any more. Used to hurt more.”

“So every time you get shot, back when I found you.. that hurt, like a normal gunshot wound hurts? Even though you healed up after?” 

“Yep.” Logan had turned away, squatting down to poke at the embers of the fire and feed it some new wood. “Every time.” 

Pity twisted Arthur's guts. He'd thought it was bad enough, having to survive through that which should have killed him and face the dawn afterwards. But the fact that there was no respite, no magical salve to take away the pain -- it seemed like deep misfortune. Or perhaps a curse. 

Not that he would tell Logan that. Though he suspected Logan knew what he was thinking anyway, from the set of his shoulders and the way his expression was fixed when he stood again. 

“That’s enough diggin’ up my demons. Siddown.” He pulled a chair out from the table and pointed to it. “I want to check that head wound you picked up fallin’ over yourself like a goddamn newborn calf.”

Arthur grumbled at that, but he knew Logan was right to be concerned, even if it grated at him. He did as he was told, wincing a little as he sat down. 

“Bein’ shot at doesn't exactly inspire steady footwork,” he pointed out. Logan grunted his disbelief at that statement as he set the kettle of water back onto the stove to heat. 

“That's an excuse I suppose.” 

His fingers worked at the back of Arthur's skull, then the bandage around his head loosened. Logan unwound it slowly and tossed it into the fire. His gentle touch walked across Arthur's head, carefully brushing his hair aside.

“How's it feel?” 

Arthur frowned, reaching up to feel for himself. “Sore, but it don't feel like my brains are rattled any more’n usual.”

Logan made a noise. “Lucky you've got a head harder than the rock you hit.” His fingertips rested on the back of Arthur's neck. He stroked down a little; Arthur couldn't stop himself shivering, his skin coming up in gooseflesh. He shifted on the chair; his britches felt too confining all of a sudden. 

Then Logan's touch was gone. He walked over to a wooden chest in the corner and rooted around in it, pulling out a handful of homespun shirts. He sniffed it, shrugged to himself, and came back, picking up the open bottle of moonshine as he passed. 

“Gonna clean this up,” was all the warning Arthur got as Logan doused the shirt liberally in the strong liquor and set it to his head. The smell of unrefined alcohol and cedar made a heady mix, but it paled in comparison to the sharp burn of the moonshine on his injury. Arthur yelled, surprised, and would have started up if Logan hadn't clamped a hand down on his shoulder, pressing him back into his seat with almost supernatural ease.

“Some goddamn nursemaid you make,” Arthur groused, gritting his teeth as Logan swiped the cloth over his head.

“You see anyone else here willin’ to put up with your bitchin’, cowboy?” Logan didn't seem particularly repentant. He wiped at the wound once more, then grunted to himself, apparently satisfied. “I reckon that'll be fine for now. No heat in it and it ain't swollen, just bruised and cut.”

“Lucky,” Arthur suggested. Logan took a swig of the moonshine, then bumped it against Arthur's shoulder. He took it. The liquor didn't taste any better going down his throat than it did against his head, but it eased the ache in his skull a little.

“More'n you got any right to be. Come on. There's somethin’ I want you to see before the storm sets in.” 

He tossed the bloodied shirt onto the chest and shouldered out of his coat, handing it to Arthur, by which Arthur took to mean they were going outside. He knew better than to try to refuse Logan for the sake of pride. The coat was still warm from Logan's body heat and smelled of him; Arthur folded it gratefully around himself as Logan lead him out of the cabin.

What brightness the day had had was swallowed by the stacked grey-white clouds, making everything seem strangely muted. Dark brush strokes of trees and earth stood out in stark relief against the snow. A small barn that was beginning to lean drunkenly to one side under the weight of its sagging roof sat a little distance down the slope. From the tracks between it and the cabin, Arthur assumed this was where the horse was stabled. A pile of split wood attested to Logan's work. 

Arthur stood for a moment on the doorstep, squinting a little after the darkness of the cabin, breath clouding in front of him, surveying an aspect he didn't recognise but felt he knew deep in his bones. These wild places had always called to him, drawing him like a lodestone out of town and household. His fingers itched to sketch the line of the mountains that rolled away across the horizon and the hunched shapes of crows seeking roost in the branches of a nodding pine. The rest of him longed to keep going into the dark trees, keep moving and disappear. 

Logan stood a little way off, looking out into the forest, his expression opaque. He'd dug a cigarette out of his pockets and silently handed another to Arthur as he came up beside him. Arthur took it gratefully, cupping his hand around it as Logan sparked a match and set it to the end. The smoke made Arthur's head swim a little, but it settled some of the restless feeling that had been beating in his chest since stepping outside. 

Logan glanced at him, maybe reading a little of what he felt.

“Come on, cowboy. I found the reason the old man picked this spot for his homestead.” 

He didn't wait for Arthur or even slow down to accommodate his hitching steps, heading off down the hill. Arthur appreciated it -- he felt he needed the time to settle his head and his heart. The cold wind and the sight of the sky had brought back his reason for being out in the wilderness in the first place instead of back with the gang. He let his eyes skate over the small details of the homestead: the water pump, rusted and frozen; the stumps of a fence sticking up from the snow, a hopeful outline of what might have been a paddock or a garden. Someone had loved this place, once. Had loved it deeply and hoped to stay for the rest of their lives. And that had been taken from them, by circumstance or cruel luck.

The same cruel luck that had taken his son.

Arthur bit down on his cigarette, grinding the bitter tobacco between his teeth and telling himself that it was the chill breeze starting the tears from his eyes. He shouldered deeper into Logan's coat, pushing aside the ache in his heart as he followed him between the sentinel trees. 

He smelled the place before he saw it. The rising wind gained a faint note of rotted eggs and iodine, and he glanced up from his feet to see Logan standing beside a rickety-looking wooden hut set up against a rocky part of the hill. Steam was filtering out through gaps in the rotting wood and a rusted arrangement of coffee cans that seemed to be serving for chimneys, winding in thin ribbons towards the snow-laden sky.

“Looks like it's a stiff breeze away from fallin’ down on our heads,” Arthur pointed out, grimacing at the smell of it. He came up beside Logan and peered skeptically at the structure. “Natural spring?”

Logan nodded. “Guess they liked the idea of a little privacy while they were bathin’.”

Arthur grunted, reaching out to push at the wooden frame a little. To his surprise, it held, though it left a greenish residue on his palm. He wiped it on his britches. “From who? The squirrels?”

“Maybe.” Logan ground out his cigarette with his boot heel and glanced up at the sky as the wind rattled the branches of the trees overhead. “‘Figure we've got maybe an hour or so.”

Arthur looked sideways at him. “For what?” 

A smile hooked up the corner of Logan's mouth. He set his hand on the front of the hut and shoved; a mess of crooked planks resolved into a door, earth and stones grinding against it as it opened. A waft of warm air and the smell of minerals rolled out to greet them.

Logan glanced over at Arthur, a playfulness dancing in the dark glints of his eyes. “Come on, cowboy. You didn't think I was gonna bathe you as well as nurse your wounds, did you?” 

Arthur coughed out a laugh and waved Logan on ahead, stubbing out his cigarette on the hut with his other hand. “Fine. Lead on, then. Let’s see this royal fuckin’ bath house.” 

The inside of the hut was dim and humid, shafts of light from the cracks in the walls crossing each other in the thick air. Something small and furry skittered away from them as they entered. The stench of the water and rotting wood hung in a miasma, not entirely unpleasant, but enough to make Logan sneeze into the crook of his arm and shake his head a little. As it turned out, the hut itself was hiding the mouth of a natural cave, which stretched back into deep shadow before them. A series of gently steaming pools crossed the floor of the cave like popped soap bubbles, some barely big enough to put a foot into and spiky with stalagmites. The largest had clearly been expanded with human hands, with river rocks stacked against one side to form a crude step. Stumps of yellow candles littered the rocky floor, along with empty bottles, moldering newspapers, open tins and other bits of detritus that spoke of once regular use.

“Ain't the worst place I've ever smelled,” Arthur observed, picking his way over to the edge of larger pool. It looked big enough for one man to lie down in, as long as he didn't mind being a little cramped, and about as deep as a copper tub. A faint swirling of the water suggested a current travelling through the pools.

Logan was peering into the cave, scowling, and confirmed Arthur's suspicion. “There's water rushin’ back there, must be an underground river system.” 

Arthur hunkered down and dipped a hand into the pool. Warmth rushed into him like a welcome guest returning home; he realised he hadn't known how cold he was, or how much he wanted to be clean again. The last time he'd had a chance to bathe properly was back in Sherwood Gulch, and that had been standing in old Joey's yard with a heated kettle and a bucket of well water. Since then the closest they’d come was the occasional river crossing.

He stood and shucked off Logan's coat, setting it aside on a rock and started to unbutton his shirt. Felt the prickle of Logan's gaze and looked over at him.

“What?”

“Thought I'd have to try a lot harder'n that to get you outta your clothes,” Logan replied, showing the points of his teeth.

He prowled towards Arthur, stones and glass crunching under his boots. The wind whistling across the hut's walls joined the faint whisper of the hidden river, the drip and splash of the pools. The sound of Arthur's breathing as Logan reached up to take over undoing his buttons. He cleared his throat.

“You said.. we got an hour?”

“Yeah.” Logan’s hands reached Arthur’s belt. Paused there. “Maybe a little longer.” 

“Good.”

Standing, Arthur had to bend his head to meet Logan’s mouth with his. It was a little disorienting, being used to Logan above him, but Logan answered all the same, surging up against him with a hot exhale of pleasure. His beard scratched at Arthur’s lips, tasting of smoke and the incoming snow. The humid air licked against Arthur’s skin as he shrugged off his shirt, letting it fall to the rocky ground. Logan’s palm chased it over his shoulder; Arthur couldn’t help the groan that rose from his throat. It had been so long since he was touched in kindness.

Logan’s spread fingers spanned his lower back, slid around his hips as he deepened the kiss. Arthur dug his grip into Logan’s clothes, trying to find an edge, a way between the folds. Logan chuckled against his mouth and helped him, the wan light coming into the hut caught in brambles of dark hair as he opened his shirt. Arthur leaned down to bury his face in it, breathing in Logan’s musky scent, kissing his throat, his collarbone, the muscles of his chest. His head was swimming a little, almost drunk on the pleasure of warm skin against his own, wanting more of it, as much as possible, wanting _him_. Logan slid a hand around the back of Arthur’s neck, mindful of his injury even if Arthur wasn’t. His other hand was busy at his belt. Arthur, knowing the steps to this dance well enough, began to sink to his knees and stopped with one leg down, hissing, as pain shivered up his thigh.

“Ah, shit.”

Logan steadied him, then put a hand under his elbow to get him back to his feet. “C’mere, kid. Oughta look at that leg anyway.”

“I’m fine, damn it,” Arthur growled, pushing Logan’s hands away. He took a step, wobbled. Logan caught him again.

“Here.” There was that quick wet snapping noise, a hard swipe over his thigh and a tug, then Logan was shaking the bandage off one of his claws. The pain lessened as the pressure eased; Arthur figured the fabric must have tightened itself as he slept. He touched his leg with his fingertips, finding it dry but gritty with blood. A soreness like a bruise pulsed through his muscles. 

Arthur glanced up to catch Logan tugging off his boots. His artist’s eye admired the ripple of muscle through Logan’s shoulders, the shadow-dimpled topography of his belly and chest and, as he stepped out of his britches, the heavy curves of his thighs. Logan’s cock bobbed, thick and half-hard, from a thatch of wiry fur. Arthur felt a sudden urge to drop back to his knees, pained or not, and take it into his mouth. 

Logan interrupted his thoughts.

“Need some help, cowboy?” 

Arthur blinked. “No, I -- I got it, just gimme a minute here.” 

He had to lean against the wall of the shack to ease his boots and socks off, praying it wouldn’t be enough to bring it down on them both. His britches stuck to the skin of his leg with dried blood; he had to take a second to breathe as he peeled them off, but the wound as it appeared was less of a puncture and more of a long shallow scrape across the outside of his thigh, surrounded by purple flesh. It was red and pained but not infected. Just another scar, as he’d supposed.

Arthur folded his britches and set them on top of his boots, then turned to see Logan already sat at the edge of the pool, leaning with his elbows on his thighs and his feet in the gently steaming water. He was watching Arthur with an expression that spoke of concern and more than a little of frank appreciation. Arthur wondered when he’d gotten so adept at reading Logan’s moods even as he felt a flush of mingled excitement and embarrassment run over him.

“If I could bottle the sight of you right now I’d be a rich man indeed,” Logan purred.

“You always this talkative while you’re bathin’?” Arthur asked, trying and failing to keep from grinning and swaggering a little as he made his way carefully over to the spring. “How’s the water? I see your feet ain’t melted off, which I take to be a good sign, though that might just be cause they’re made outta bear leather.”

“Just fine. The stink of it might even improve your stench, cowboy,” Logan pointed out. 

Arthur ignored that last remark as he stepped into the water, wincing slightly at the heat on his winter-chilled skin, not much cooler than a bath. He eased himself down slowly, hissing out a breath as he submerged his injured leg. The warmth and the mineral steam of the water enveloped him, unknotting a tightness in his spine he hadn’t realised he was carrying around until it was gone. 

“Now that’s a piece of heaven,” Arthur sighed. The rocks were river-smoothed underneath him; he slid down a little and ducked his head under, washing away the blood and hurt of the previous days, letting it be taken by the currents into the cold black rivers under the mountain.

"You gonna come in or sit there watchin’ like a goddamn owl?" Arthur asked after surfacing, wiping water out of his eyes and knowing without looking that Logan was watching him. 

Logan grunted out a laugh. "It's either sit here or sit with you like vegetables bumpin' up against each other in a stew pot. Maybe I'm considerin' my options." 

"Consider away, with my blessing." Arthur scratched his chest and leaned back a little, arms spread along the edges of the pool, closing his eyes. He felt Logan's hungry gaze like a weight dragging across him, speeding his heart and making his prick throb. 

Eventually there was a sloshing of water and Logan’s feet were bumping his legs, the weight of his thighs settling down either side of him, onto him, Logan’s hand was on his face, thumb stroking over his cheekbone, drifting up to tangle in his wet hair. Arthur let out a shaky breath against Logan’s lips. Logan pulled back a little, teasing, making him work for it. Patience finally spent, Arthur growled and reached up for him, pulling him down into his lap in the hot water, slippery palms skidding over muscle and wiry hair, heavy and hard in all the right places.

It was painful, Logan’s weight settling too close to his injury, but the breathless heat rising from the water and the smell of Logan’s body and his tongue on Arthur’s neck made the pain bearable, becoming almost pleasurable, the satisfying ache of something long wanted. Dichotomies thrummed through him, chasing each other: cold air on wet skin; hot breath on cold cheek. Logan began to move his hips, his cock sliding up against Arthur's in the water. 

"Ahh, goddamn," Arthur groaned, pulling Logan closer, wrapping his arms around his solid weight, banked fires of need surging into life again. Logan must have felt the same; a shudder went through him as Arthur fisted a hand in his hair, his own fingertips digging into Arthur's sides. He bared his teeth against the side of Arthur's neck, panting. Animal sweat and the mineral smell of the pool coated the back of Arthur's throat on every breath, more potent than the finest liquor. The hut creaked and shivered in the rising wind, groaning in concert with them.

The friction in the water wasn't comfortable, but Arthur couldn't have stopped himself for anything, not the storm or an act of God. He felt feverish, dizzy, his head pounding in time with his heart, in time with Logan's thrusts against him. He buried both hands in Logan's hair and kissed him, hard and clumsy and desperate, tongues and teeth clashing, sharp canines dragging across his lower lip as he shuddered and cursed.

"Goddamn, cowboy," Logan growled, "don't stop makin' those noises."

He slid a hand down between their bodies, fingers wrapping around them both; Arthur's hips bucked, it had been too long since it was anyone else besides himself, too many days of being on edge around Logan, and --

"Fuck, oh fuck," he grated out as he came, helpless and sudden like being thrown from a horse, hips jerking and spine curved, his vision painted with stripes of light and darkness. 

Logan rode it out with him, slow movements of his hand becoming slower as Arthur subsided against him, panting.

"Guess it really has been a while," Arthur offered, breathless, after a minute or two, not quite an apology. 

Logan grunted in response and shifted, climbing off him. As Logan moved away Arthur ducked his hands in the water and rubbed them over his face. The heat of the place was suddenly almost too much, growing uncomfortable. As his heartbeat began to slow a headache settled in the back of his skull like a bird coming home to roost.

"Don't worry about it, kid." Still breathing a little hard, Logan cupped a handful of water and splashed it on his face, then ducked his head under briefly. He shook it out like a dog; Arthur swallowed the urge to complain when he got sprayed, thinking perhaps he deserved a little of it.

The wind shrieked across the roof of the hut. Logan glanced up, scowling. 

"We oughta get outta here before we're snowed in. Come on." 

Arthur didn't need to be told twice, craving a breath or two of fresh air no matter how cold it was. And it was cold indeed as he climbed out of the pool, pausing for a moment to wipe down his limbs with the flat of his hand. Logan stalked over to his clothes with no regard for the glass and bits of metal that crunched under his bare feet.

Arthur hadn't realised how grimy his clothes had become until he had to pull them on again over wet skin. He grimaced at the feeling, resolving to clean them as soon as he had the chance and do what he could about the tear in his britches.

A breeze choked up with ice and snow whipped around their heads as they emerged from the hut, sending freezing fingers down Arthur's spine. He inhaled a grateful lungful of clean, cold air.

"This a good idea, walkin' through a snowstorm while wet to the goddamn skin?" Arthur tucked his hands under his armpits and squinted out at the trees, already frosted with white.

"Nah," Logan replied, hauling the door of the shack closed. "But I ain't stayin' here to get buried either. We can dig the hut out when it's died down. Come on, I ain't carryin' you back."

He headed off up the slope, apparently trusting that Arthur would follow along behind him. Muscles warmed by the hot spring and Logan's touch, Arthur once again felt the need to make good on that trust.

It was something about him, Arthur figured as they made their way up scramble and scree, heads ducked against the sting of snow and wind. Something that Dutch had too, that compelled fellers like him to follow, that brought out that itch of curiosity and passion. Some kind of charismatic energy, maybe, or just a belief held so strong that it seemed to leak out, like holding a hand cupped around a bright candle flame. Except, unlike Dutch, Logan didn't seem to have a cause besides living from one day to the next. 

As they reached the cabin and Logan shouldered the door open, letting yellow firelight and warmth spill out onto the snow, Arthur wondered if that was such a bad cause to follow.


End file.
